my rooster is mating with my shoe...and not in a cute way

Warning: this post is a bit disgusting. I am about at wit's end with my imprinted year old roo!
He is always doing to wing drag/shuffle dance to me (I always pick him up and show him who is boss when he does, but the problem is he LIKES being picked up, closes his eyes and starts cooing) and lately has been pecking my shoes and sometimes grabbing and holding on. He does the wing drag to my running shoes when I am not wearing them too...WELL for the last week or so, he has been full-on trying to mate with my shoes (ie, biting, covering with his wings, etc).

Today he was loose outside and my shoes were on the porch....I went to put them on, and let's just say if I wanted to artifically inseminate a hen, I could have collected a sample from my shoe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have tried him with hens before and just introduced him to a few hens again....continually bites their necks very aggressively, then when they submit and hunker down, he continues to bite their backs. Shows no sign of interest in being normal or mating with them (I do know that at first youngsters don't really know what to do and can be rough while they figure stuff out...) Should I just let him have his favorite shoe and call it a day? I'm not wearing the darn things anymore....Is he just practicing? He clearly knows what to do to, ahem, service a hen like a normal roo...but he is only interested in my shoes???? Do I hide my shoes from him and hope he eventually realizes that hens are better than shoes????HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I suspect if you take the shoes away, he'll find another pair (ie what you are wearing outside) to shower with love. Unfortunately since he's imprinted on humans, he may never figure out what hens are for. However, it is also possible that he is just a confused young man, and just needs time (many roosters do have problems to start with, though not so comedically).

You might want to leave out your old unwanted shoe to keep him off of any other shoes, and give him some time to sort himself out.

Good luck!

"It's easy. You draw a red line on the ground, right? Then you wait for a chicken to come along. When he arrives, he puts his beak right on the line and he's hypnotized!"Joey Santiago

My Marilyn was this way............human imprinted roo. He dances for me, finds me treats and comes to his name. But he picked sandwich containers to personally love.

Mar was rough with his hens at first also. I waited until he was almost 18 months before he got any girls. If he was too rough, I picked him up and scolded him (Mar that is not how you romance a girly, you must be gentle) then set him back down. He really would rather be picked up also, so I think it was the scolding talk that finally got thru his skull.

It did take him a couple weeks/month before he stopped running to me so much and he now pays more attention to his girls - even takes them out free ranging. He is becoming a good chicken roo. But he still asks to be picked up.

Fowl adventures happening daily

"Poultry- they may be your pets, they may be your hobby, they may be your livestock. But remember, if you fall down in the pen, unconscious? They WILL eat you." ~ Sally/Ranchie - we miss you.

haha glad you enjoyed my post! i know you are laughing with me, no bad feelings....i do think it is funny...guess I will chalk this episode up to another chapter to go into my book about my life with a pet rooster:) stay tuned! Obviously I have done him some serious psychological damage by being an overprotective mother:(

That is fantastic!!!!!!!!! And they say Chivalry is dead!! Does he do this with one particular pair of shoes? Does he prefer left over right?

LOL A dear friend of hubbys and mine had a pitbull who had a thing for my hubbys jeans...he was nowhere near mean or aggressive until hub would try and take his denim clad "lady" off of him!!! So it just came down to :::::stick leg out away from the table and say "go ahead Chopper have your way with me"::::: and then everyone would be fine ...well... a ll except hubbys jeans. It was no particular pair or anyone else. Chopper just chose my hubby!!!